Story highlights

South Korea announced 12 North Korean women and one man defected from a state-owned restaurant in China last week

North Korea says it amounts to a "group abduction"

CNN gains exclusive access to seven waitresses from the same restaurant who say their colleagues were tricked into leaving

Pyongyang (CNN)The door opens and seven women walk quietly into the ornate lobby of the Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang. Their faces are expressionless. Most wear little or no makeup, black jackets, and patriotic red lapel pins.

The women, all in their 20s, represent some of the most trusted citizens in the North Korean capital. They come from good families and were chosen for the coveted assignment of working abroad to earn money for their government.

Until earlier this month, they were waitresses at a state-owned and operated restaurant in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province, in southern China. Now, that restaurant is closed. And these women's lives have become extraordinarily complicated.

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"We would never leave our parents, country, and leader Kim Jong Un. None of us would ever do that," said waitress Han Yun Hui, sobbing alongside her colleagues.

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"The workers said that they learned about the reality in South Korea through South Korean TV, soap operas, movies and (the) internet," said South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee at the time.

A spokesman for the North Korean Red Cross quickly denounced the apparent defections as a "group abduction" of North Korean employees "in broad daylight," according to KCNA -- the official mouthpiece of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un's government.

Waitresses: Restaurant manager lied

The seven waitresses, presented exclusively to a CNN team in Pyongyang on Monday, are workers from the same Ningbo restaurant, who have since returned to North Korea. This is the first time they have spoken publicly. They claim the restaurant manager tricked the other 12 waitresses into leaving, by lying about their final destination.

"In mid-March our restaurant manager gathered us together and told us that our restaurant would be moved to somewhere in Southeast Asia," said head waitress Choe Hye Yong.

In response, the South Korean Unification Ministry issued a statement to CNN: "13 defectors voluntarily decided to leave and pushed ahead with the escape without any help from the outside. Following their voluntary request to defect, our government accepted them from a humanitarian point of view."

China: North Koreans left legally

Photos:North Korea's verbal volleys

Photos:North Korea's verbal volleys

North Korea has a history of using creative language to express loathing for its enemies. Here are some of the regime's more colorful threats against the West.March 2016: North Korea warned it would make a "preemptive and offensive nuclear strike" in response to joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises. Pyongyang issued a long statement promising that "time will prove how the crime-woven history of the U.S. imperialists who have grown corpulent through aggression and war will come to an end and how the Park Geun Hye group's disgraceful remaining days will meet a miserable doom as it is keen on the confrontation with the fellow countrymen in the north."

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Photos:North Korea's verbal volleys

March 2016: Following the imposition of strict U.N. sanctions, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the country's "nuclear warheads need to be ready for use at any time," the North Korean state news agency KCNA reported.

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Photos:North Korea's verbal volleys

January 2016: North Korea claimed to have successfully tested a thermonuclear weapon, justifying its right to have an H-bomb on the grounds of "self defense."

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Photos:North Korea's verbal volleys

September 2015: In a statement, North Korea said its nuclear arsenal was ready for use "at any time."

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Photos:North Korea's verbal volleys

August 2015: As forces from the U.S. and South Korea took part in joint military drills. North Korea's state media referred to the exercises, which started on August 17, as "madcap" and issued a stern warning to America: "If the U.S. ignites a war in the end, far from drawing a lesson taught by its bitter defeat in the history, the DPRK will bring an irrevocable disaster and disgrace to it."

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Photos:North Korea's verbal volleys

August 2015: On August 23, as North Korean negotiators were meeting with their South Korean counterparts over current tensions, a KCTV presenter appeared on air repeating North Korea's ambitions to "destroy the warmongering South Korean puppet military."

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Photos:North Korea's verbal volleys

December 2014: The FBI said it suspected North Korea was behind a hack of Sony Entertainment, which led executives to initially cancel the theatrical release of "The Interview." The film was a comedy about an American television personality who the CIA asks to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. North Korea threatened "merciless" action against the U.S. if the film was released, accusing the U.S. of retaliating for the hack by shutting down North Korea's Internet access. North Korea's National Defense Commission also called U.S. President Barack Obama "reckless" and a "monkey."

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Photos:North Korea's verbal volleys

July 2014: North Korea threatens to hit the White House and Pentagon with nuclear weapons. American "imperialists threaten our sovereignty and survival," North Korean officials reportedly said after the country accused the U.S. of increasing hostilities on the border with South Korea. "Our troops will fire our nuclear-armed rockets at the White House and the Pentagon -- the sources of all evil," North Korean Gen. Hwang Pyong-So said, according to The Telegraph.

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Photos:North Korea's verbal volleys

March 2013: Angered by tougher U.N. sanctions and joint military exercises by the United States and South Korea, the Supreme Command of North Korea's military vowed to put "on highest alert" the country's "rocket units" that are assigned to strike "U.S. imperialist aggressor troops in the U.S. mainland and on Hawaii and Guam and other operational zone in the Pacific." Whether Pyongyang has the will to back up such doomsday talk is a perplexing question, but there is evidence that its know-how -- in terms of uranium enrichment, nuclear testing and missile technology -- is progressing.

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Photos:North Korea's verbal volleys

February 2013: In a message to the United States and South Korea, North Korea vowed "miserable destruction" if "your side ignites a war of aggression by staging reckless joint military exercises."

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Photos:North Korea's verbal volleys

June 2012: Once again, North Korea vowed to be "merciless" in its promised attack on the United States, this time threatening a "sacred war" as it aimed artillery at South Korean media groups. North Korea was mad that South Korean journalists had criticized Pyongyang children's festivals meant to foster allegiance to the Kim family.

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Photos:North Korea's verbal volleys

April 2012: North Korea's state-run news agency reported that "the moment of explosion is approaching fast" and promised "merciless" strikes against the United States. "The U.S. had better ponder over the prevailing grave situation," it said. Later that month, Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket that broke apart and fell into the sea. The launch came during preparations for a grand party that celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea.

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Photos:North Korea's verbal volleys

November 2011: North Korea's military threatened to turn the capital of South Korea into a "sea of fire," according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency.

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Photos:North Korea's verbal volleys

2009: After the U.S. pledge to give nuclear defense to South Korea, Pyongyang threatened a "fire shower of nuclear retaliation."

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Photos:North Korea's verbal volleys

2002: U.S. President George W. Bush includes North Korea in an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq, which North Korea brushes off as a "little short of a declaration of war." North Korea reportedly threatened to "wipe out the aggressors." That year, North Korea also threatened to kick out international inspectors who were in the country to monitor its compliance with global nuclear nonproliferation agreements.

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If true, a mass defection would be a humiliating blow to the Pyongyang leadership. Especially because it was apparently allowed by China, North Korea's most powerful ally and trading partner. In the past, China has sent defectors back to North Korea. But last week, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang made the unusual move of commenting publicly about the case.

"After an investigation, 13 [North Korean] citizens were found exiting the Chinese border with valid passports on the early morning of April 6. It is worth noting that these people all had valid identity documents with them and exited the Chinese border in accordance with law," he said in an April 11 press conference.

Many analysts believe China's actions could be a sign of increased tension between Pyongyang and Beijing. Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un's government faces growing isolation and heightened sanctions over its nuclear and missile programs. Ongoing allegations of widespread human rights abuse made by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights continue to infuriate North Korean leadership.

Observers believe Kim is trying to project strength, both domestically and internationally, ahead of the crucial Worker's Party Congress next month, when the young leader is expected to consolidate his power. South Korean government intelligence indicates a fifth North Korean nuclear test could be in the works ahead of that major political gathering.

Source of foreign income

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The North Korean government is believed to subsidize its military and scientific activities by sending tens of thousands of citizens to work abroad, bringing in an estimated $1.2 billion to $2.3 billion annually, according to a U.N. report last fall.

State-owned restaurants are one way the cash-strapped regime brings in much-needed foreign currency. But the restaurants, along with other North Korean enterprises, are believed to be struggling under the heightened sanctions.

When asked if she had a message for her friends and colleagues who are now in South Korea, head waitress Choe Hye Yong made an emotional plea.

"Comrade Kim Jong Un is yearning for all of you to return. We are awaiting your return, unable to sleep or eat. Please hold on a bit longer, gain victory, and come back to our country," she said.

Still wiping away tears, the waitresses walk back through the hotel lobby to the door they came from. Their lives are forever changed. They now face the heavy burden of explaining why their friends left home and didn't come back.